WEBVTT - Minister for Mafias? Behind the proposal being put before the Government 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:05.960 Kiota. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.119 I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:16.680 daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government's 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:21.840 being urged to create a new ministerial portfolio to focus 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:26.320 solely on organized crime. It's the number one threat to 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.960 our national security and as such there should be a 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.639 government minister put in charge of tackling it. And that's 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:38.400 according to a report from experts advising the Coalition. In 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.720 recent years there have been record busts at the border 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.839 as global crime syndicates, including Mexican cartels and outlaw biking 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.440 gangs have targeted New Zealand as a small but lucrative market. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.760 So why are we losing the fight against drugs and 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.240 organized crime? And what can be done to give us 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.280 a better shot at tackling the issue. Today on the 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.440 Front Page, the Advisory Groups chairman and Meredith Connell Criminal 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.080 Prosecutor Steve Simon is with us to discuss how New 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:18.720 Zealand might appoint a minister of mafia's so Steve. This 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:23.240 Ministerial Advisory Group was appointed by Cabinet back in February 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.759 to give government advice about how to overhaul the ways 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.279 in which law enforcement and regulatory agencies can work together 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.440 in this space. Tell me how has that process been. 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:38.119 It's been especially been quite an exciting process. I've been 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.039 a Crown prosecutor at Meredith Connell for twenty years and 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.200 so during that time I've done some very serious cases 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.320 for the police, and then I migrated to doing lots 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.080 of serious cases for different government departments, and during that 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.120 time I saw a lot of frustrations that they were 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:00.080 in the covet agencies of could we do more. So 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.920 it's actually been quite invigorating to be part of a 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.600 group that's just there to finances and I've got a 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.800 really good committee, really good crew. We have robust arguments 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.400 trying to get to the best outcome we can and 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.520 it's been really good so far. We are at this 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:22.000 precipice where we've been doing these monthly reports and we're 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.760 about to finish our final report for September and then 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:27.799 we'll be in the hands of the government to see 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.120 what they do with that. But we are hopeful because 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.800 the support we've had indicates that the government is interested 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.360 in being tough on crime, and particularly tough on organized crime. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.680 So we're hopeful that all of our hard work will 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:42.320 pay off. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.320 And what have some of those discussions been around. What 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.200 are some of the themes over the last nearly a year. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.080 Yeah, what we were asked to do was to say, look, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.239 organized crime is a big issue, and it's a big 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:57.640 issue now already in New Zealand. But if we look 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.480 even across to Australia and see where they are at now, 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.160 that kind of the ghost of Christmas future for us. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.120 We can see where it's going to go. And unfortunately 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.320 it's a pretty bad picture. Not through anything that New 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.440 Zealanders are doing. It's just we are an environment where 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.600 we've got a pretty good economy and we are prepared 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.880 to pay high prices for things like drugs. We are 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:24.040 vulnerable to things like fraud and so we're a risky market. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.040 And so what we've tried to do is in these 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.920 monthly reports kind of break the subject up. And so 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.880 our first report was trying to identify how bad the 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:37.840 problem is and so that for you know, your listeners, 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.440 your watchers, they could see what we mean when we 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.240 say organized crime, not just guys riding around on motorbikes, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:49.560 but large or international, almost corporatized organized crime. Our next 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.680 report in April looked at chasing the money, and so 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.480 I'm very grateful that one of our committee members is 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.640 Craig Hamilton, who is a former police officer who knows 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.720 everything you need to know about organized crime and relation 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.800 to money laundering and proceeds. He helped us with that, 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.600 and then in May we looked at We've looked at 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:13.560 the role of corruption that being a growing theme. We've 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.600 looked at the community, We've looked at information sharing, and 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:22.040 we're just about to reach this report which is about accountability. 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:26.520 How bad is the problem? Can you quantify it? 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.159 A very good question. No, we can't, and the reason 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.440 we can't is because part of our problem has been 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.120 although we've recognized organized crime as a problem for New 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.839 Zealand and we'll get worse, our difficulty has been we 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.240 don't really have metrics. Right. So, in the same way 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:46.520 I could tell you a by the health system by 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.720 how long it takes some to get through accident an emergency, 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.400 or how are my kids are doing at school based 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.960 on how they're grading is and how that meets against 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.080 national standards, we don't have the same kind of metrics 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.200 in relation to organized crime and what we see from 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:05.280 international experiences. We really need to have that. We currently 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.480 have our wastewater testing, which does not paint a good picture. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.200 You know, we saw its spike last year and effectively 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.599 double yeah, and so and it's doubled and it hasn't reduced, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.360 its flat lined, and so we're now it seems consuming 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.120 twice as much meth and feto men as we were 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.360 last year, which is incredibly troubling. So what we see 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.480 is we don't have enough metrics to know exactly how 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.080 bad the problem is, except when you talk to enforcement agencies, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:34.440 they will tell you it's bad. 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.120 Well, police and customers a routinely intercept massive amounts of 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.640 drugs at the border. We're talking hundreds of kilos at 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.000 the border. And I spoke to Harold senior reporter Jared 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:46.760 Savage actually about this subject. 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.640 Fifteen nine years ago, you know, one kilo of myth 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.919 was a big deal, and I was a front page story, 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.599 and you know, like literally a front bach story. And 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.920 these days, you know, even the smallest of drug dealers 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.680 we have far more than a kilo in the back 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.840 of the car. We're talking imports of four or five, six, 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:08.880 seven hundred kilograms. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.640 Yeah, I'm showing my age, but I've been around as 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.440 a prosecutor since some of the first intercepted drug cases 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.599 and we were talking, you know, less than a kilogram 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.520 of methamphetamine, whereas now on the bus we're talking about 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.560 in the hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine. And Jared Savage, 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.080 to show his age, has also been around on those 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.160 same cases. It's interesting you look at his latest book 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.719 and it's interesting for me reading through it because it 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.799 reads more like a yearbook than it does work of fiction. 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.400 But what's troubling about that is these are all true cases. 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.440 This is what is going on in New Zealand's environment, 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.640 and we are seeing this real kind of narco's approach 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:51.039 to organized crime in New Zealand. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.080 We as a government, we've done a lot of work 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.840 around public facing stuff that people see, the game patches, 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.200 the sentence saying but this is what's in behind driving 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:10.760 this prime trend that we need to get on top of. 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.440 And the first part is building at public awareness. It's 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.400 about a step change in the way we approach. We 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.080 have always operated in silos and our enforcement agencies we 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.760 work cooperatively at the ground level. We hadn't been very 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:31.680 good at a high level, allowing these leavers to be polls. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.640 So in the report, the latest one, you said, people 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.160 across a range of sectors, industries and roles are working 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.960 hard to play that part, but the system is not 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.640 optimizing their work in a way that it should tell 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.120 me a bit more about about that. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.440 As a starter, we should say we've got good people 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.000 in New Zealand. And it's one of the things you 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.240 see when you go over and see other countries, see 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.360 how they're struggling, and you come back and by and 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:03.440 large we've got really credible people, hard working, really passionate staff, 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.720 and our police force and all of our enforcement agencies. 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.680 I've worked with a number of those people over the years. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.160 The difficulty that we've got is it's kind of it's siloed, 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.120 and so we'll have the police have got a huge 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.680 variety of work to look at, you know, from domestic 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.520 violence through to organized crime, through frauds, through a variety 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.160 of different sectors. So it's very hard for them to 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.240 target the organized crime piece alone, even more so when 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.880 they need to rely upon other agencies to help them. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.000 A good example is perhaps mb MB is a large 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:41.599 government organization which has got multifaceted their core business objective 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:43.120 for the last few years has been to be the 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.480 easiest place in the world to do business, which is 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:48.320 great and we do want that because we want our 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.240 economy to thrive. At the same time, our transnational organized 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.400 crime strategy was to be the hardest place in the 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.040 world for organized crime to do business. So you can 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.400 see the tension for them in terms of how they 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.160 play their role in supporting police and customs and other 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:06.520 agencies to target organized crime. And so what we've said is, look, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.160 we need to rather than have this split over a 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.240 variety of different ministers, we need this to be brought 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:17.679 under one organized crime minister. One minister is responsible both 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.160 to Cabinet for this response but also to the public. 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.080 So when your listeners, your watchers come and say, well, 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:26.800 who can we. 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:28.480 Look to us, where does the buck stop? 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.000 Where does the buck stop? We have one minister to 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.000 answer that question and then supported so that that minister 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.000 can get answers and results from those different agencies. We 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.880 still want the police to police, we still want customs 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.640 to do their job, we still want mb to do 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.040 their job, and we can say the same with all 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.360 the agencies. We just need them to have some support 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.600 to make sure that they're doing the best job they can. 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.560 So collectively, as a team, we can be fighting organized crime. 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.760 And what might that ministry look like and how might 0:09:57.800 --> 0:09:58.400 it operate? 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:03.319 Well, the first thing we've said is we want any 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.000 We want the Minister to have responsibility for the organized 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:12.800 the transnational series organized crime plan, so they're in charge 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:13.040 of that. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:15.960 How about thirteen agencies involved in This is. 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.640 About thirteen agencies and you can play a good pub 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.160 quiz game of trying to figure out exactly who they are. 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:23.560 And even amongst them, there's some that are split. You know. 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.959 For an example, an MB Immigration has a really important 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.880 role to play in terms of trying to address migrant exploitation. 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.000 At the same time they have the company's office which 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:37.360 can has been exploited sometimes for money laundering and the likes. 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.680 So even within the ministries there's split functions and so 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.960 you've got so many different people trying to respond to this. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.679 We're just trying to say, let's align all those us 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.480 and put them in one place and the support that 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.360 minister with a small team that can help. We don't 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.520 want to recommend an agency, we don't want to recommend 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:01.680 a department. They're not trending anyway, but I don't want 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.120 to Our committee didn't want to recommend something that means 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.800 in a year's time there'll be an office with another 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.800 set of staff doing another set of things. We wanted 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.040 to see results straight away. So we've said there should 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.920 be a small elite team that helps that minister and 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.240 really helps energize the agencies to do their job as 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:20.960 best as they can. 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.360 And I know that you've mentioned nor is it holding 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:27.840 to account those who are not meeting expectations. So who 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.400 are we talking about there and how do we hold 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:32.680 people to account. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.240 What we've seen is there are some agencies doing an 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.640 incredible job. Police Customs are doing an incredible job. Other 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.840 agencies are not doing as good a job. And so 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.600 our point is to say we should be in supporting 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.439 and encouraging the great work we've got. We should really 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.719 be putting our resources behind helping those initiatives, helping those 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.320 who are trying to do their best with organized crime. Similarly, 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.280 we need to say if people are not coming to 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.679 the party and doing as much as they can, we 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:00.600 need to look at that and say, are we best 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.760 put our resources there or shall we give it to 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.800 someone who will use it. But more fundamentally than that, 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.480 what we've heard from these agencies is the guys at 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.120 the front line are saying, it needs to be clear 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.760 what you want us to do. And so what we've 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.120 seid is when we have this organized Crime Minister and 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.520 have this secretary to support staff to help them, we 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.720 need to help the agencies with a work plan and 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.520 much the same you would have in a business, working 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:29.840 through what are our priorities, what are the things we 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:31.640 can do? And so we want to create a shopping 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.920 list for these agencies to say, what are all the 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.439 things you could do to help the fight against organized crime, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.079 whether it's your agencies direct fight against crime or helping 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.760 another agency. How can we provide you a list so 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.200 you know what you've got to do and then when 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:47.880 we work through the course of a year, we can 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:49.160 see whether you've done it or not. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.880 And of course this problem hasn't just popped up overnight 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.520 or over the last couple of years. Hey, I saw 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.840 that there was an example given about the Organized and 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.839 Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand and that was set 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:02.080 up back in two thousand and eight, but that ended 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.880 up being a little bit of a failure. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.720 It started off well, it had some good people on 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:13.840 it had great intentions and was perhaps a symbol of 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.160 how even at that stage kind of when methanphetamine was 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.880 just really kicking off in New Zealand, we saw the 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:21.600 issue and we saw we needed to get on top 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.440 of it, but it kind of fell apart. It fell 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.520 apart through a lack of leadership, a lack of resources. 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.080 And what that illustrates. The lessons there for us are 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.680 one to say, look, we've had to go at it, 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.880 then it hasn't worked. What lessons can we learn from that? Now? 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.439 What we know is we have to have very strong leadership. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.199 So whoever the minister is, if the government accepts our recommendation, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.040 whoever the minister is, will need to be strong, will 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.160 need to be bold. The support team that they have 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.400 will need to be bold. And what we need to 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.200 do is have followed through. They will need to have 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.560 resources to help them achieve what they need to achieve, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.600 and we need to have them be accountable themselves. We're 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.560 proposing things like this minister should stand in front of 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.640 the government instead of standing in front of Cabinet every 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.440 year with a report explaining where we're at in our 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.200 fight against organized crime. We've been doing these monthly reports. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.559 We were coming out doing this talking to the public, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:20.880 and we're saying we should have more of that. The 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.480 public is desperate to know what we are doing in 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.680 this fight against organized crime. We feel like they should. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:28.520 Know well because it is a fight that we are 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:30.680 essentially losing at the moment. 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.520 We are and that's not through lack of hard work 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.000 and great energy. It's just that the problem that is 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.840 coming to us from overseas is so significant. We're seeing 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:51.120 the scale of drug production overseas is overwhelming. Now. Whereas 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.920 we once saw small methamphetamine labs happening in New Zealand, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.720 we're seeing large scale uber labs happening in South America 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.800 and in Asia, and those drugs are coming to New Zealand. 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.920 We're seeing fraud, not being some Nigerian prince calling you 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.120 to ask you for your bank account, but large scale 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:13.080 schemes where they're using AI to try and develop profiles 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.520 so they can trick you into providing details. So the 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.560 scale and complexity we're seeing now of organized crime is growing, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.560 and New Zealand, like other countries around the world, is 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.960 falling victim to that, and so we're saying we really 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:27.960 needed to take the fight to organized crime. 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.400 Have you had any response from the government this far. 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.920 Are The response so far has been really positive. I 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.680 have to say Minister Costello, who is the Minister for 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.120 Customs Associate Minister for Police, she's a former police officer 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.880 and so when she was setting up our minister or 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.880 advisory group, she was very clear to us to be bold. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.120 She was very clear to us that's not just rhetoric. 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.960 She has through her time during the police and then 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.880 her time as a private investigator scene how there's lots 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.640 of promises are made but not much follow through and 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.600 so for us, her point was you need to be 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.760 very clear and come up with bold initiatives and then 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.360 leave it for the government to push those through and 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.920 see if we can support those. I've had great meetings 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.119 with Minister Mitchell, I've had great meetings with Minister Goldsmith. 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.240 I'm working my way around a number of the other ministers. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.800 They care and what has been really interesting for me 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.520 is to see the passion with which they want to 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.000 confront this problem. And what we're trying to do is 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.240 create an opportunity to say in our September paper we 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.800 will have the solution and what we're looking for is 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:39.880 government getting behind that. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.480 Well, nothing gets more bold, I think than suggesting another 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.280 ministerial portfolio. Hey, what do you reckon? The chances are 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.440 by say this time next year, we will have a 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.440 mafia minister or something so to speak. 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:59.680 I'm optimistic and I think we could do variations of that. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.360 We could lose lesser degrees of that. You could take 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.479 one of the existing portfolios, like the Police, like the 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:12.320 Ministry of Justice and add on to those, but that 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.160 would be ignoring the problem we see, which is we 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.800 need one place to come to so we know who 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.199 is accountable for this. And don't get me wrong, that 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.240 will be a big task for that minister. There will 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.600 be big issues for them to face now and in 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.080 the future, and that's why it's going to have to 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:31.359 be someone who's pretty robust. 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.639 Do you see that responsibility lying upon someone like the 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.640 police minister, because I know that. You know, in cabinet 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:45.600 reshuffles past, oftentimes ministers do get multiple portfolios, sometimes ones 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.159 that interconnect with each other. How important is it to 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.560 keep the police minister and say a Minister for organized 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:52.400 crime separate. 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.520 I don't think that matters too much. As long as 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.439 the minister who takes hold of this portfolio is bold, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.679 and as long as that minister understands the nature of 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.919 the organized crime problem and is aware of what's happening 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.440 overseas so they can see where it's trending as well, 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:11.880 and so that we can make sure that we resource 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.800 it properly. You will oftentimes see ministers hold a number 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.280 of different portfolios. What we need now is someone bold. 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.000 Thanks for joining us, Steve, You're welcome. 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:21.639 Welcome. 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.159 That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.080 can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:36.199 at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.679 produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.359 our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.040 on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.760 in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.